


24 Things Lockheed Found Under the Bed

by KittyViolet



Category: New Mutants, X-Men (Comicverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Beds, Bisexuality, Canon Compliant, Counting meme, Dragon habits, F/F, Found objects, Multi, Romantic Friendship, Vibrators
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-29
Updated: 2018-01-29
Packaged: 2019-03-11 02:55:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 24
Words: 1,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13515204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KittyViolet/pseuds/KittyViolet
Summary: If you're a space dragon, you get to look under the bed. You can sleep there, too. You can sleep where you like.





	1. Cassette Tape

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place shortly after the Demon Bear saga. Consistent with everything else I've done set in the 1980s, but should also be able to stand alone. Inspired by multiple stories that have a similar structure, by several non-X-verse novels about dragons, and by a request: you know who you are.

Upstairs at Eric's, by Yaz, because "Only You." Because high tech-- or what people who have never been in space consider high tech-- can be just as expressive as any acoustic guitar, and because if you're afraid you're going to lose somebody someday you can inoculate yourself a little, feel closer to them, and listen to your own heart, through a love song that warns you how you would feel if they were gone.


	2. Sony Walkman

Because there’s no cassette deck in the Blackbird, and you can’t take your headphones, or a backpack or purse, on the back of a motorcycle, or into the field.


	3. Leather Bracelet with Flat Lapis Lazuli Stone

Because Dani gives her friends, and potential friends, small meaningful things she brought from Colorado, and because it’s turning out to be her color, and because if Kitty is going to be a team leader someday somewhere Dani thought she could use a reminder; they need to talk about what "team leader" means.

Cherished; rarely worn.


	4. Leather bracelet with embossed silver characters along the outside, in a language that Kitty can’t read.

Because if she fingers the characters in a certain order (she has it memorized), Illyana will come from anywhere and be here.


	5. Leather pouch with embossed silver characters on the inside, in a language that Kitty can’t read, big enough to fit comfortably around a tall girl’s right hand.

Because if she fingers the characters in a certain order (she has it memorized), Illyana will come from anywhere, and (it might take a little longer) be here.


	6. Empty plastic bottle with bright white traces of scentless, mild skin lotion.

Sometimes they draw on each other’s skin; that all it takes.


	7. Machine almost identical to the smallest variety of dragon egg, with a hole for a 1/8” plug and cord at one end.

Lockheed used to wonder what this machine was for—was it supposed to hatch robot dragons? Plugged in, it hums as if about to hatch. Now Lockheed knows that’s not what it’s for.


	8. Machine almost identical to the metallic egg, but smaller, made to fit on the end of a finger.

Lockheed used to be jealous of that one, since it perched on Kitty’s finger like a tiny dragonet. The dragon isn’t jealous any more.


	9. Baby-blue three-ring binder, almost full; spine reads “C++RBRO.”

The language had to be customized for the updates, and if she wasn’t going to do it, who would? It’s kind of amazing that the software worked at all before she got there, a few years back. Also a vote of confidence that the Professor let her install the updates before she turned fifteen. It’s not like any of the New Mutants could do that.


	10. Vintage rose-quartz glasses with subtle horn rims, missing one arm.

She found them in a school desk. They must have been old, old. Like, from when Scott was a teen. Now he’s living—well, they’re not sure where he lives. He moves around. He was gone so soon after she arrived. Someday he’ll come back, they’ll have a real conversation and Kitty will ask Scott questions that she feels like nobody else could answer for her, though really she'll have to answer them for herself.


	11. Gift-wrapped glossy paperback facsimile of the Voynich MS, purchased at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Birthday present for Doug, who will likely just read it straight through.


	12. Eleven greeting cards with abstract patterns or flower photography, the messages inside half-written or scribbled out.

It’s important to recognize birthdays, and really hard sometimes to find the right thing to say. And how will she know if she said the wrong thing? It's not C++. It's not like the people will just shut down, or stop working, or spit out garbage. Well, except Lockheed, who ate lots of non-food items during the space dragon's first days on Earth, none of them harmful, some of them literal garbage. But Lockheed doesn't get written birthday cards; the dragon just spends the whole day wrapped around Kitty's clavicle, which is itself a kind of present. That's how this dragon learned what presents are.


	13. Five more greeting cards with Japanese characters or NHL logos on the outside, the messages inside half-written or scribbled out.

It’s especially hard when the birthday is Logan’s, though those so often get interrupted anyway (she’s seen three so far). Also, he's never told anyone his favourite team. Probably one of the Original Six.


	14. Sky-blue ballet flats.

The ones Kitty realized, last year, that she had outgrown.


	15. Much-worn cotton training bra with diamond pattern.

The one Kitty realized, last month, she had also outgrown.


	16. Blue and white Tampax Regular box, with one left inside.

They have the same shape as a certain kind of ocean creature eaten as a delicacy on Antares VI, so when the dragon first saw them, and then saw what they’re for, the dragon was very confused. 

“If you don’t know what something’s for,” Kitty said, patting her dragon’s lavender head, “just ask.”


	17. Cassette tape case (empty) for Metallica, Ride the Lightning.

Not Kitty’s. Good workout music, though not for ballet. Ilya hasn’t decided whether it’s better, or worse, than Kill ‘Em All.


	18. Cassette tape case (empty) for Franz Schubert, The Trout Quintet, op. 114, Clifford Curzon, pianist, with members of the Vienna Octet.

Discovered through Hank; purchased because, apparently, it makes space dragons excited enough to fly fast figure-eights and bob their heads up and down, much like the way that Ilya reacts to Kill 'Em All.


	19. Gold notebook with unlined paper, mostly empty.

A few pages have Piotr’s sketches: of great trees, of flowers, of ferns, of Ilya from when Ilya was really a kid, of Kitty from when Kitty was—it’s not something she thinks about right now.


	20. Elfquest Book 2 (Virginia Beach, Va.: Donning, 1983).

Book 3 is on the bed. Book 1 is under the bedspread.


	21. One sapphire-and-lavender-colored diamond-pattern knee sock.

The other one is, also, on the bed.


	22. Black plastic bowl of dry Rice Krispies, almost empty, with bits of dried mushrooms and slivered shallots; also an avocado pit.

A space dragon experiments with food. Not all the experiments work out.


	23. Box of Kleenex, with a few intact, many balled up, slightly salted, then stuffed back inside.

A space dragon has seen a lot of tears. Some of them tears of abandonment, or betrayal (after what she learned in Japan, Kitty may never be able to go back to Deerfield), some of them tears of sorrow (she’s a good listener, but she doesn’t keep anything in), some of them tears of joy. 

Metal eggs are irreplaceable, are wonderful for all concerned, including space dragons who are very, very discreet about what they can see and when they can be seen (Lockheed has definitely seem some things that Kitty does not know that Lockheed has seen). But some of the best moments in Kitty's life have been just about holding hands; about tears of joy; about having a space dragon, one you were afraid you had lost in space, zip down to eye level, or land on your head.


	24. A rose.

Space dragons have been known to wear spacesuits in vacuums, but they do not normally have pockets, backpacks, suitcases, bedspreads, beds, or clothes. They keep what matters in their own heads.

The windows are closed, but the HVAC duct is open, and it’s a fine spring day. Lockheed will come back to sleep on her bed—their bed, now; two girls and a space dragon belong there together—for most of the night, but by then the humans might be asleep. The dragon will perch on the lower end of the bedframe for a while, tucking a crested head under a manifold wing, thinking about how many things dragons remember, what dragons and their friends have been lucky to see, about everything that dragons get to keep.


End file.
